The US Federal Communications Commission is close to completing a plan that would give small businesses, women and members of minority groups preferences worth hundreds of millions of dollars in bidding on new licences for Personal Communications Services, the New York Times reported: the plan would reserve nearly 1,000 radio licences for small businesses in what Commission officials call entrepreneurs’ blocks, and companies owned by minorities or women would receive an array of bidding credits, or discounts, and flexible payment terms, which could shrink the cost of a wireless licence by as much as half; the Commission plans to define a small business as any company that has with less than either $100m or $125m annual sales.
